Awesome friend LLL celebrated her graduation from CU by making a trip to Oregon. LLL left the Pacific NW for Denver ten years ago, and her Oregon friends have been clamoring for her return ever since. Her visit coincided with my birthday, thus her stay with us was a celebration times two.

Speaking of my birthday, it was mostly good, thanks for pretending to care (dramatic sigh). The day started off with a congratulatory email from my sister RAV, which included a preemptory warning : “Having some regrets about the card I impulsively sent…you’ll see.” I did see, or rather, heard. It was a belching birthday card. I don’t know why my baby sister would think it might not be the classiest thing to send, considering that she knows I keep this on my google version of speed dial:

But I digress. LLL was able to join us for my family birthday dinner at one of my favorite Portland restaurants. Plus, due to LLL’s B.M. (“Blonde Moment”);. i.e., what may go down in family lore as The Unfortunate Incident with the Kettle…[1]

Attentive, intellectually-gifted readers of this blog [2] may recall LLL as having been previously and memorably featured in my post of post of June 28, wherein I imaginatively if profanely slagged coolly scolded LLL’s festering turd of a husband for the underhanded, craven, scrotum-shriveling manner in which he dumped her.

I am happy to report that, with the support of kind friends, a whip-smart attorney and her own strength of character, LLL successfully survived the Douchebag Husband-ectomy .[3] It warmed the cockles of my heart…

Heart cockles pix unavailable, but this winsome Scottish lass could use some warming.

…to see that LLL is not only surviving but thriving, and looking forward to what the New Year will bring.

* * *

Before the New Year comes Christmas, which provides a convenient segue to my annual forthright, sincere, family-friendly,

The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”[4] Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans, and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts until 1681.[5]

Heathen’s Greetings

“Do you celebrate Christmas?”

Heretics/apostates non-Christians happy heathens often hear this question at this time of year. The inquiry is sometimes presented in ways that imply our celebration (or even acknowledgement) of Christmas is hypocritical. This implication is the epitome of cheek, when you consider the fact that it is the early Christians who stole a festival from our humanist (pagan) forebears, and not the other way around.

Who doesn’t like a party/celebration, for any reason? And really, we who are religion-free don’t mind sharing seasonal celebrations with any religious folk– sans the superstition and government/church mumbo-jumbo — as long as they accept the fact that the ways we all celebrate this ‘festive season’ predate Christianity by hundreds of years.

The fir boughs and wreaths, the Yule log, plum pudding, gift exchanges, the feasting, the holly and the ivy and the evergreen tree….It is hard to think of a “Christmas tradition” that does not originate from Teutonic (German),Viking, Celtic and Druid paganism. [6] A celebration in the depths of winter, at the time when, to those living in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun appears to stop its southerly descent before gradually ascending north, is a natural instinct. For thousands of years our Northern Hemisphere ancestors greeted the “reason for the season” – the winter solstice – with festivals of light and gift exchanges and parties. The Winter Solstice was noted and celebrated long before the Roman Jesus groupies pinched the party.

But, isn’t “Jesus is the reason for the season?

The reason for the season? Cool story, bro. Since you asked; actually, axial tilt is the reason for the season. For all seasons.

And Woden is the reason the middle of the week is named Wednesday.[7] My calling Wednesday “Wednesday” doesn’t mean I celebrate, worship or “believe in” Woden. I don’t insist on renaming either Christmas, or Wednesday.

“Go find the sheisskopf who took the Woden out of Woden’s Day!”

The Winter Solstice is the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, and the longest night. In the northern hemisphere it falls on what we now mark as December 21 or 22. However, it took place on December 25th at the time when the Julian calendar was used. [8] The early Romans celebrated the Saturnalia on the Solstice, holding days of feasting and gift exchanges in honor of their god Saturn. (Other major deities whose birthdays were celebrated on or about the week of December 25 [9] included Horis, Huitzilopochtli, Isis, Mithras, Marduk, Osiris, Serapis and Sol.) The Celebration of the Saturnalia was too popular with the Roman pagans for the new Christian church to outlaw it, so the new church renamed the day and reassigned meanings to the traditions. [10]

In other words, why are some folk concerned with keeping “the Christ in Christmas” [11] when we should be keeping the Saturn in Saturnalia?

Whatever your favorite seasonal celebrations may be, I wish you all the best. Let the fruitcake-free holiday hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] You really do need to plug in an electric kettle; it is not stove-top-friendly.

[3] Unfortunately, this vital procedure is not yet covered by the ACA.

[4] Increase Mather, A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs, Now Practiced by Some in New England (London, 1687). See also Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday, New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

[5] Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday.

[6] “Learn not the way of the heathen…their customs are vain, for one cuts a tree out of the forest…they deck it with silver and gold…” Jeremiah 10:2-5

[7] Wednesday comes from the Old English Wōdnesdæg, the day of the Germanic god Wodan (aka Odin, highest god in Norse mythology and a big cheese god of the Anglo-Saxons until the seventh century.

[8] The Julian calendar, adopted by Julius Caesar ~ 46 B.C.E., was off by 11 min/year, and when the Gregorian calendar was established by Pope – wait for it – Gregory, the solstice was established on 12/22.

[10] In 601 A.D., Pope Gregory I issued a now famous edict to his missionaries regarding wooing potential converts: don’t banish peoples’ customs, incorporate them. If the locals venerate a tree, don’t cut it down; rather, consecrate the tree to JC and allow its continued worship.

[11] And nothing in the various conflicting biblical references to the birth of JC has the nativity occurring in wintertime.